At the December 2025 summit of the Council of the EU, concerns over potential investment arbitration claims under the 1989 Belgium-Luxembourg-USSR BIT were among the factors that contributed to the decision not to use immobilized Russian Central Bank assets held at Euroclear as collateral for a loan to Ukraine—EU leaders ultimately opted for a €90 billion loan backed by common EU borrowing secured against the EU budget instead (see IISD analysis). Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever had described the risk of Russian state entities or the Russian state using the Cold War-era treaty to challenge the use of the immobilized assets as a “Sword of Damocles” hanging over his government, leading Belgium to demand ironclad guarantees against legal and financial liabilities before agreeing to the original proposal. As part of the negotiations, Belgium reportedly demanded that EU member states terminate all existing bilateral investment treaties with Russia and refrain from concluding new ones—a demand that found expression in the European Commission’s proposed Reparations Loan Regulation, which calls on Member States to “withdraw from or terminate” their BITs with Russia and tasks the Commission with facilitating this coordination. Council Regulation (EU) 2025/2600, which permanently immobilized Russian Central Bank assets under Article 122 TFEU, also includes a safeguard clause explicitly barring the recognition or enforcement of any judicial, arbitral, or administrative decision obtained by the Russian Federation or entities acting on its behalf in connection with those measures.